Geek Estate Blog

A VC Firm with Real Estate Relationships Like No Other

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 23:55:34 GMT

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Second Century Ventures.]

Second Century Ventures is the strategic investment arm of the National Association of Realtors, the largest trade organization in the US, and invests in technology companies across real estate, financial services, banking, home services, and insurance. Dedicated to seeing the entrepreneurial spirit of real estate thrive, keeping the agent at the center of the transaction.

Docusign was one of its very first investments back in 2009 and has since grown to a market cap of more than 40 billion.

Second Century Ventures launched the REach accelerator in 2013, a nine month, highly selective program that provides companies with capital, meaningful partnerships, and and resources to fuel growth. They recently announced its 2020 class which represents a market capitalization of more than $400 million.

What we like: With ties to NAR’s 1.4 million members, deeply experienced executives, and a strong pool of mentors, there is no VC firm that can match its depth of industry relationships across real estate and adjacent industries.

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The Forever Brokerage Tech Platform

Sun, 02 Aug 2020 20:46:53 GMT

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: MoxiWorks.]MoxiWorks is a software suite built for large residential real estate brokerages that helps brokers sell more homes by providing integrated tools to increase repeat and referral business while lowering technology, support, and training costs. The platform serves over 260 brokerages and 340,000 agents, which make up 13% of transactions in the U.S.

Originating from Windermere’s tech department, Moxiworks was spun out in 2012 and is now a broad tech platform that operates seven main tools.

MoxiPresent is a comparative market analysis builder.
MoxiEngage is a data driven CRM platform.
MoxiImpress is a collection of automated marketing tools.
MoxiTalent helps brokerages recruit top brokers.
MoxiWebsites provides a website builder for agents and brokerages.
MoxiHub is a centralized community background connecting the entire brokerage.

MoxiCloud connects technology systems and offers a one stop destination for the data that connects them, with over 50 integration partners, including the following members of the GEM:

In 2019 MoxiWorks received funding from Vector Capital. Following that, MoxiWorks acquired Imprev, a marketing automation platform that handles digital social media marketing, and print property marketing that is also based in the Seattle area. Its CEO, Renwick Congdon, is a founding member of the GEM.

Represented in the GEM by: York Baur.

What we like: They have incredible leverage with the tech ecosystem due to their sizable brokerage customer base. Aside from direct relationships with the top franchises, MoxiWorks is the most efficient tech integration to be available to a base of independent brokerages.

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Power to the DIY Landlord

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 16:32:32 GMT

[Note from editor: The “Mastermind Showcase” highlights companies and news from members of the GEM. Today’s showcase: Avail.]

Avail enables DIY landlords to easily manage their properties. Their product streamlines online rental listings, applications, lease templates, rental payments, maintenance requests, and tenant vetting. Scales with landlords as they acquire additional properties by serving as a central dashboard to manage everything.

Avail handles syndication of rental properties across the web and gives landlords a full profile of potential tenants by providing credit scores, criminal backgrounds, and eviction reports. They provide lawyer-approved, state-specific templates and integrated rental insurance. We completed a full product review as part of our category product review series for the small landlord property management software sector.

The company recently completed its 4.2 million Series A.

What we like: The maintenance and repair tracking feature relieves’ landlords from a plethora of manual tracking. There is little friction to onboarding users since the product is Free for landlords, with an option to upgrade later for $5.00 per unit per month.

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Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Stephen Arifin from The Closing Docs

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 16:00:02 GMT

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Stephen Arifin from The Closing Docs.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Stephen Arifin and I am one of the founders of The Closing Docs. Prior to serving as a software engineer at Microsoft, I had launched and supported several other revenue generating software tools. I am the technical founder and lead for our company. I graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

I love bringing new technology and creative ideas into outdated industries, and that’s exactly what we’ve done with The Closing Docs. Our automation has streamlined the income verification process for companies managing more than 635,000 units.

What problem does your product/service solve?

The Closing Docs provides automated income verification to property managers and lenders. Historically, screeners and underwriters are collecting paper pay stubs and bank statements from applicants. This manual process is ripe for fraud, is really cumbersome and is burdened by many start/stop cycles in the set of related activities. By expediting deal closings and eliminating fraud, we have significantly compressed vacancy periods and underwriting cycles, getting applicants approved in minutes, not days or weeks.

We provide a real solution to a very real and cascading problem. Even before COVID-19, pay stub fraud was on the march. And now, with rampant job loss, fraudulent pay stub and bank statement submittals are apt to increase in prevalence significantly. With the current rate of unemployment announcements, it is more important than ever to have a clear view of applicant income.

The outdated method to verify an applicant’s income involves scanning or taking pictures of bank statements, W-2’s, and pay stubs. This form of income verification was a very manual process, which involved screeners deciphering bank statements and playing detective investigating whether the documents were falsified. Each applicant’s income documents arrived in a different format, which led to huge inefficiencies in approving a rental applicant. Many property managers also call the applicant’s employer, which can take days to get a hold of the right person in HR to confirm employment. Each day it takes to approve a tenant means your property is remaining vacant and not generating income.

Using The Closing Docs, we pull the applicant’s bank statement data directly from the applicant’s bank account, with their permission. Since our data comes directly from the bank, our income verification completely eliminates fraud. Once the applicant decides to share the data, a standardized report is generated for the property manager instantly, verifying the applicant’s income in minutes rather than days. That means shorter vacancy periods, more income, and faster, more accurate data.

What are you most excited about right now?

Well, implementing new customers on first phone calls and inside of 30 minutes is pretty exciting – I’ve never experienced that before now! Property managers know how painful the income verification process is, and when they finally find a product that makes it easier by light years, their eyes spark up. It’s really fun to know you have true product market fit.

What’s next for you?

Growth, growth, growth. With the customer adoption and retention we’re experiencing, it’s time to grow the business hockey-stick style. We’re leveraging sales channels through integrations with a bunch of property management software programs, like Appfolio, Buildium, Yardi, and Propertyware, and we also support Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers for our integrations. We’re focused on increasing our sales and have expanded our marketing budget to expedite uptake.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

Being an entrepreneur myself, I’m extremely passionate about helping other entrepreneurs succeed. The best place I’ve found to give back in this way is through Seattle’s Community Carrot program.It takes another founder that’s been in the trenches to truly understand what starting a business is like. While building The Closing Docs, I’ve received a tremendous amount of support from my friends and family, along with other like-minded founders and mentors. Now, I am happy to step out of my way to help other aspiring entrepreneurs achieve their dreams.

Thanks to Stephen for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop me a line (drew @ geekestatelabs dot com).

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